(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink replenishing apparatus and method for an ink-jet printing ink cartridge (to be referred to as a printing ink cartridge hereinafter), capable of quickly replenishing a printing ink cartridge, which has an ink absorber made of a porous body or fiber bundle in an ink storage chamber, with an optimum amount of ink.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, when replenishing a printing ink cartridge, having an ink absorber made of a porous body or fiber bundle in an ink storage chamber, with an ink, for example, the ink is directly dropped to the absorber with a dropping pipette, or the ink is injected into the absorber with a syringe.
With the conventional ink replenishing method, it is difficult to determine the optimum amount of ink to be replenished in accordance with the amount of ink remaining in the ink cartridge. When the cartridge is replenished with ink particularly excessively, the ink overflows from a portion of the ink cartridge through which the ink replenishment is performed, or the ink leaks from another opening portion (a vent hole, an ink discharge port, or the like) of the ink cartridge.
A color-printing ink cartridge usually has a plurality of ink storage chambers in units of colors, and the amount of ink consumed by printing differs from one chamber to another among different colors.
Conventionally, to replenish a color-printing ink cartridge with inks, only an ink storage chamber, the ink of which has been consumed completely, is replenished with a predetermined amount of ink with a dropping pipette or the like, and then the ink cartridge is used for printing again. However, ink is not supplied to other ink storage chambers, the ink of which has been consumed to a certain degree. Therefore, optimum amounts of ink are not constantly supplied to the respective ink storage chambers, and ink shortage often occurs in an ink color of the ink storage chamber which is not previously replenished with ink.
When replenishing with ink the ink storage chamber where ink shortage occurs, if the user tries to replenish other ink storage chambers as well with ink, it is difficult to replenish these ink storage chambers with optimum amounts of ink.